MHKY: is anyone even paying attention anymore?
The Badgers lost to arch-rival, and former peer, Minnesota on Friday night by six goals. Somehow that was an IMPROVEMENT from the last time the two teams played.
It has been almost 13 months to the day since I wrote an article at Bucky’s 5th Quarter about the Wisconsin Badgers men’s hockey program. You can find that article right here but in case you don’t want to get sad and angry on a Saturday, I’ve taken the pleasure of screen-shotting the title for you.
Since that article was written, the Badgers finished the regular season with:
5 wins
15 losses (including a 4-0 loss to the US U-18 team)
3 ties (one shootout win and one shootout loss)
None of the five wins came on the road (although one of the wins and the shootout win came in Milwaukee) and only one of them was against a ranked team, a shocking 5-3 win over No. 11 Notre Dame in February. The Badgers entered the Big Ten Tournament not in last place in the conference, although they did have the worst overall record by far, and lost to the Fighting Irish 2-1 in the best-of-three series.
This year Wisconsin is 7-10-0 overall, which seems pretty good right? However, four of those wins are home games against Lindenwood (started playing D1 hockey in, uh, this season) and LIU (started playing D1 hockey in 2020-21 season). The other three are, wildly, against ranked opponents Michigan (No. 5) and Minnesota Duluth (No. 10, road sweep).
A quick sidebar: Wisconsin’s recent dominance of the Bulldogs is, quite frankly, inexplicable. UMD won back-to-back national titles in 2018 and 2019 and yet they haven’t beaten the Badgers since 2011! To be fair, they don’t play every year anymore, but Wisconsin swept them in Duluth this year, swept them in Madison in 2019, swept them in Madison in 2013, and tied and beat them in Duluth in 2012. Oh yeah, they were coming off another national title in 2011 for those games!
But, if you look at Wisconsin’s record in the Big Ten, which is 1-8-0, you get a more accurate picture of where this team is…and that’s the cellar. Friday night’s debacle in Minneapolis is now the norm for this team and when they are competitive against top-tier opponents any fans still paying attention, which are few and far between, are genuinely shocked.
I was vaguely following the game on Twitter but didn’t bother to turn it on despite having two screens set up in my living room and the game being on national TV. The Badgers quickly went down 2-0 in the first and I was ready to write the game off before a Charlie Stramel PPG cut the lead in half.
(What is extra hilarious is that after the men’s hockey account tweeted out the first period score graphic…their next two tweets were the second period score graphic and the final score graphic. Lmaooooo there was literally nothing for the OFFICIAL TEAM ACCOUNT to talk about during the game.)
Alright, I thought to myself, let’s just get to the first intermission and regroup and then come out with a little momentum in the second period! Obviously the Gophers scored two more goals in the first, entered intermission up 4-1, and the rest of the game was academic.
My brother-in-law and I are both Badgers and our father-in-law is a Gophers fan. We were joking about the game at dinner on Friday night, before the puck dropped, and he said he thought Wisconsin had a chance because they had been playing well lately. I think we all knew he didn’t really believe that. He also texted Saturday morning “Sounds like score not indicative of game. WI had 37 shots on goal.”
Now I don’t want to put my father-in-law on blast in front of God and everybody, but Wisconsin ACTUALLY had 38 shots on goal since they did score once. SO TAKE THAT, GOPHERS!
I also decided to look into their shots to see if Minnesota’s goalie just had an insane game or if the Badgers were just kinda lobbing the puck at the net. While there aren’t as many advanced stats recorded for college hockey as there are for the NHL, College Hockey News’ website has a couple of useful numbers. For instance, they track plays that happen when a game is “close” which they define as: “Events that happen when the game is 'Close,' i.e. within 1 goal (up 1, down 1 or tied) in the 1st or 2nd period, or tied in the 3rd, at even strength.”
The Badgers managed 15 total shot attempts during the “close” portions of the game. Six were blocked, three missed the net, and the other six were saved. On the other side of the ice, the Gophers had 18 total shot attempts, three of which were blocked, four that missed the net, nine that were saved, and two that went in the net for goals.
It appears to my untrained eye that Minnesota not only dominated the game overall, they dominated it when it was still in the balance as well. Wisconsin fired off a bunch of shots that were as useful as spitting on a house fire.
How many more times does Minnesota have to embarrass Wisconsin on the ice before someone, anyone, in the athletic department cares to make a change? In their last four meetings, the Gophers have outscored the Badgers 24-2! Even if you extend it to the last 10 games, the Badgers still have a losing record against the Gophers (4-6) and it doesn’t get any better the more games you add to the scope. Minnesota has dominated the overall series (Wisconsin has a 100-180-24 record against the Gophers) but there is usually at least some hope that UW could win, or at least be competitive, and I would struggle to find anyone, outside of UW’s locker room, who believes that going into Saturday night’s game.
The losing sucks. It definitely does, but what is even worse is how little Wisconsin men’s hockey matters anymore. The administration clearly doesn’t care and the fans (outside of the biggest sickos) don’t care either. This is the same exact shit I wrote a year ago! Look at this:
Another problem is apathy. The state of Wisconsin doesn’t have an NHL team and while there are surely Minnesota Wild and Chicago Blackhawks within state lines, the Badgers hockey program is the main game in town. The women’s team routinely leads the nation in attendance and the men’s hockey team, when things are clicking, has the Kohl Center rocking.
Since things have not been clicking, the ol’ barn has lacked juice and every time Todd Milewski tweets out a picture from the opening face-off a little piece of me dies inside. Even after a season where fans weren’t allowed in the arena the Badgers couldn’t muster a decent showing for the home opener.
I used to love Wisconsin men’s hockey! I had season tickets! I traveled to road games! I couldn’t even be bothered to turn my second TV to Big Ten Network last night to watch them play their biggest rival. I just didn’t care.
This is the road UW football was heading down with Paul Chryst, by the way, but Chris McIntosh stepped in and made drastic changes to try and right the ship. Will they work out? We obviously can’t know that yet, but he saw a problem looming and proactively fixed it before it got worse.
The men’s hockey team has had two winning seasons in Tony Granato’s seven years behind the bench (I am already chalking up this year as another one) and he has made the NCAA Tournament once in his tenure. ONE TIME IN SEVEN SEASONS?!?
HOW IS THAT EVEN REMOTELY ACCEPTABLE FOR A PROGRAM LIKE WISCONSIN????? I feel like I’m taking crazy pills every time I remember that Granato is still the coach. He isn’t good! He has never been good!! What the hell are we waiting for?!?!
Tonight’s game is on TV again here in the Twin Cities but with volleyball in the Elite 8 and Arizona playing Indiana in men’s hoops there is definitely no space for the hockey game in my living room. Fix this, Chris McIntosh. We all know you have the stones to do it, so just get it over with.
This program needs fans in the seats in Kohl Center. I'd be surprised if the administration hasn't noticed their absence.